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Virtual PC for mac 7 question

A

Amy2005

macrumors regular
Original poster
Aug 10, 2005
237
0
North Yorkshire, England
Hi
I got Virtual PC for mac version7 with windows XP proffessional on for christmas. and i just wondered if the software makes you get viruses on your mac coz of the virtual windows on it? its something thats worrying me now i have the software.
thanks
amy
 
Windows within Virtual PC can get viruses, but they can't spread to your Mac. The worst they can do is ruin your Windows installation on VPC. The way I deal with that (although I haven't yet gotten a virus) is to keep a copy of the VPC disk image on a DVD so that if I ever need to, I can just delete the image from my hard drive then copy it back off of the DVD.

So in short, yes Windows in VPC can get viruses but they won't spread to your Mac and they're a lot easier to deal with than viruses on a real PC.

Merry Christmas!
 
Thank you :)
If i do get a virus on the virtual pc do i just reinstal it using the disc that it came on? sorry i'm not vry good at this lol. Please could you tell me if it is worth getting any virus protection software with it too?
Happy christmas :)
 
After you set VPC up, you may notice that the PC's disk image itself is stored in your home folder in Documents/Virtual PC List/ . It's a file with the extension .vpc7. Make a backup of that on a CD or DVD right after you install VPC and Windows. Then if your Windows ever gets a virus or otherwise gets screwed up, you can just delete that file and copy it back off of the CD/DVD you made, and your Windows installation will be back to new. You don't actually have to reinstall VPC or Windows if you just make backups of the .vpc7 file. Of course, you need to be careful not to lose any data that you may have stored within the Virtual PC. Does that make sense?

I personally don't use virus protection on Windows in VPC. Some people do, but my opinion is that it will slow things down A LOT and it's easy enough to restore a virtual PC off of a backup that antivirus software isn't worth it.
 
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